This invention relates to a hospital refuse sterilization plant. Hospital refuse cannot be disposed of by dumping because of its potential infective power, and has therefore to be disposed of by incineration. However, to prevent the contagion which it could generate during the handling involved in its transport to the incinerator, particular care has to be taken which further increases the already high cost of disposal by incineration. The problems connected with overall safety and cost could be solved if such refuse could be sterilized prior to its disposal. In such a case the refuse could be dumped as normal domestic refuse. However the sterilization of hospital refuse in the quantities and configuration in which it occurs on its collection for feeding to disposal cannot be validly achieved with the hoped-for efficiency, economy and guarantee of sterilization using current equipment, because of the particular nature of hospital refuse. Such refuse consists of a heterogeneous mass of randomly arranged objects which for safety reasons are additionally placed in appropriate containers the purpose of which is to provide at least temporary protection to the person required to handle it within its area of occurrence. Specifically, hospital refuse usually contains infected containers such as syringes, bottles, test tubes, vials and the like which form a protected repository for germs because it is difficult for fluid used for sterilization purposes to reach them. This happens mainly if the infected container is sheltered from the sterilizing fluid by being well within the interior of the mass of refuse. Existing sterilization equipment is not designed for proper effectiveness against a heterogeneous mass of random objects such as hospital refuse, but only against objects arranged non-randomly and in only tendentially limited quantity within the equipment. Even if dimensioned for use for hospital refuse, the effectiveness of such equipment is uncertain, and the sterilization time and capacity for a given overall size and operating cost would certainly vary considerably with the quantity of refuse to be sterilized. Consequently, known equipment would involve much higher times and costs the greater the mass of refuse to be sterilized.